Have you heard the story of a gentleman who was applying for a job who was filling out an application? The man came to
the part on the application which said, “Are your parents still living, and if not how did they die? Unfortunately, the man’s father had been hung in public as a result of stealing a horse. His son was not proud of how his father had met his untimely death. At
the same time he wanted to tell the truth on the application. So he simply wrote
on his application, “My father was attending a public function when the platform on which he was standing collapsed.
And that is how he died.”
In some cases that story
probably has more truth than fiction. For all of us have had family stories handed
down to us that tell of from where we have come. Those stories tell us from where
our ancestor came, and what values they held dear. But more than what the facts
actually were, these “stories of origin” convey certain values to us—values by which we are challenged to
live our lives.
The Judeo-Christian faith
likewise has family “stories of origin.” These stories tell of how
we all came to be, and how God chose to relate to the human creature. Most importantly,
these stories do not hold up our ancestors in the faith to be examples of virtue—because they were not examples of virtue.
Rather, these family stories tell of God’s faithfulness to sometimes rather irresponsible and sinful people.
Just like in the balancing
of a child’s seesaw, these “stories of origin” have their own balancing counterparts. These balancing counterparts
are the “stories of our destination”—stories that tell where human life is going. Just as our “stories of origin” say more about how we are to live out our lives in the present
— likewise, our “stories of destination” say more about how we now are to live out our lives in expectation
of what will be in the future.
At the same time, in reading
Revelation, many of the images are confusing and easy to misunderstand. And even
when the New Testament canon was being formed at the end of the 2nd century, the Book of Revelation barely made it into the
cannon. John Calvin never wrote a commentary on the book, claiming it was too
confusing to understand.
So why read and preach from
the Book of Revelation on “All Saints Sunday?” We need to hear its
words, because as Christians today it is hard, if not almost impossible, for us to imagine the persecutions that those first
Christians faced. They were declared “terrorist” within the Roman Empire, and they were constantly on the run for their lives. And yet they were the first saints of the church—our
brothers and sisters in the faith—Christians who were risking it all for the sake of Jesus Christ. We do not know most of their names, or how they painfully died. Yet
2000 years later their words of hope still inspire generations of Christians that live amidst a world with its shifting values.
The verses we read this morning
from chapter 21 are the high point of the book. The first words of that opening verse echo
words from the Prophet Isaiah, when John the Elder declared, “Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Note that Revelation is not about escaping from the sinful earth. Rather, Revelation
is a story about God’s transformation of heaven and earth as a part of God’s new creation. As a part of that transition, the old heaven and earth were no more—they would exist only in the
past.
Further, in ancient Jewish
literature the “sea” was representative of chaos and evil. From it
the “dragon” had come, and from the sea the dragon’s protégée, the great “beast,” had arisen.
And the great beast “...was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them...” And all the rest of the inhabitants
of the earth then worshipped it.
Further, the sea was separating
John the Elder, who was exiled on the Island of Patmos, from his family and his church. In declaring that “the
sea was no more,” John therefore was declaring that no longer would evil and chaos be threatening God’s creation—no
longer would the sea be a barrier dividing people from one another.
John continued his vision,
“And I saw the city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband.” When John was writing these words from his exile in Patmos, the old city of Jerusalem lay in ruins.
It had been destroyed 25
years earlier by the same Roman armies that now were persecuting Christians. As
the result of persecution, the Christian Church had scattered throughout the Roman world. And
therefore, John wrote his letter of Revelation to seven of the scattered churches in cities where the Christians had fled.
As the Christian faith was primarily an urban religious movement, the place for
God to come to earth would be where the churches were—in the city, new Jerusalem.
Note that in Revelation there
is no mention of any “rapture”—there are no Christians being taken off the earth for heaven’s glory.
That image of the “rapture” was a distortion of the Biblical story
by John Nelson Darby, a religious leader that lived during the mid to late 1800’s, and whose thought has been perpetuated
by the Schofield Reference Bible and the Left Behind series of books. In contrast to Darby’s teachings, the Biblical
account tells of heaven coming down to earth, not earth going up to heaven; Heaven coming down to earth, a transformed earth,
an earth that has been prepared for the presence of God.
And then God spoke, “and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them...”
The word for “dwell” used here can be translated as “tabernacle.”
The word conveys the thought of God “pitching his tent” in the midst
of people. It is the same word used in The Gospel of John, chapter 1:14 when John wrote,
“And the Word became flesh and dwelled (tabernacled) among us...”
No longer would God’s
reign be distant in heaven; rather God’s reign would be in the midst of the people of the earthly city. And God’s presence within the midst of that earthly city would determine the quality of life within
the city. John here has displayed a portrait of a new creation, where God’s people can go about their lives without
fear of the forces of evil.
John continued, “...he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death
will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” In God’s new creation, the tears of grief, as well as the pain of martyrdom for the faith, all would
be in the past. For in the new Jerusalem, “Death will be no more...the first
things have passed away.”
There was a church, and one
of the stained-glass windows depicted the “new Jerusalem”, the eternal city, descending from heaven to earth.
After many years, the window became a source of debate within the congregation.
Some of the members thought that the picture was too other-worldly. They wanted
something that better described their church’s mission of compassion within their community. In time, some of them decided to clean the “New Jerusalem window.” Upon getting closer to it, they discovered that the colors within the stained-glass had faded. The result was that, through the faded image of the eternal city, they could see the outline of the towers
of their own city. Through the vision of one city they could see the other city. The
members changed their minds about removing the window. For in that stained-glass
window their mission had been defined: to help transform their city into being in the image of the eternal city.
That is the vision that Revelation
21 paints for us. For its words are not just words of comfort for the afflicted.
Rather, its words are also words of challenge to us as the Church today. The vision of Revelation challenges us to transform the systems of our current world,
so that it might be consistent with that world which we pray for. That is, when
we pray that it might be “on earth as it is in heaven.”
